Strategic Memory Lane

It is known as the “Road to Nowhere” or “Ghost Road,” but there are hopes that political and strategic problems can be sidetracked to resurrect the World War II-era Ledo Road, running between India and China through Burma

Scores of trucks driving along a double-track, all-weather road from India to China must seem like a scene from a futuristic or sci-fi movie. But it is neither. It is the past. In 1945, a convoy of 113 vehicles traveled from Ledo, in India’s Assam State, to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, in southern China. It took 24 days to cover the 1,726 km route.

This long haul initiated the short lifespan of the Ledo Road—or the Stilwell Road as it is also known, in honor of its builder, Gen Joseph W Stilwell, commander of US Forces in the China-Burma-India theater of World War II, and chief of staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, Supreme Allied Commander in China.

The road was one of the greatest engineering projects of the time. Built by one of the most international labor forces of all skin colors, under the supervision of American engineers and under the fire of Japanese snipers, it was operational for only 10 months. Then the war was over.

It had been built to provide supplies for the Allied forces in China and north Burma after the Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942 had cut off the earlier line of war supplies shipped by rail from Rangoon to Lashio, and then on to Kunming along the Burma Road. The construction of a new line of communication from the railhead town of Ledo in India, via Myitkyina, to join the Burma Road near the Chinese border, began in the same year. The road was formally completed in May 1945, and served to haul an estimated 34,000-50,000 tons of ammunition, guns and food to China during its brief operation.

Today, the Ledo Road is called “a road to nowhere” and a “ghost road,” and embarking on it can be a nail-biting venture.